1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates, in general, to air purifiers and, more particularly, to an air purifier for use in providing clean air by removing dust, bacteria and contaminants in air.
2. Description of the Related Art
As is well known to those skilled in the art, an air purifier is used to provide purified clean air after dust, bacteria and contaminants in the air are eliminated. The air purifier is provided with a dust collecting unit to collect dust, etc. In the dust collecting unit, dust particles electrically charged by corona discharge of an ionizer are collected by electrostatic attraction of a electrostatic filter having a polarity opposite to the polarity of the charged dust particles.
FIG. 1 is a side sectional view of a conventional air purifier. As shown in FIG. 1, the conventional air purifier includes a pre-filter 102, an ionizer 104, a electrostatic filter 106 and a final filter 108. The pre-filter 102 acts primarily to filter relatively large dust particles. The ionizer 104 functions to charge the dust particles electrically to bear a positive polarity by corona discharge between a discharge electrode 104b and ground electrodes 104a positioned at both sides of the discharge electrode 104b. The electrostatic filter 106 has a plurality of horizontal partitions 106a bearing a negative polarity. When the positively charged dust particles flow between the horizontal partitions 106a of the electrostatic filter 106, the dust particles are adsorbed and collected on the negatively charged horizontal partitions by electrostatic attraction. The final filter 108 functions to filter fine dust or bacteria not filtered by the electrostatic filter 106.
However, the conventional air purifier which filters dust, bacteria and contaminants suffers from exhibiting no functions of deodorization, sterilization and removal of hazardous components such as VOCs (volatile organic compounds). Particularly, bacteria may be filtered by the final filter 108, but the air is not completely sterilized. Hence, worry over propagation of the bacteria in the final filter 108 increases. The conventional air purifier is thus not completely effective due to lack of provision of various air purification functions.